Catholic Adoption Agencies Do Not Believe in U.S. Principles of Equality
A big case is before the Supreme Court that will determine is a Catholic Adoption Agency can receive public money but discriminate against classes of parents it does not like. The Court should send such religious groups packing.
The case involves a dispute common in the U.S. A gay couple wants to adopt a child available for adoption. The Catholic agency says it will not place children with couples, regardless of their qualities as parents, if the couple is gay. Only one reason is given for this policy, the religious beliefs of the adoption agency. In this case it is Catholic.
The link laments this position because it deprives a couple of rights equal to those of heterosexual couples. Yet, she writes, the religious views of the adoption agency must be respected.
Deep in the article she pitches her solution to the dilemma. She points out that these religious views against adoption by homosexual couple go far back into history. They reflect, she continues, wisdom acquired over centuries. This wisdom, she writes, should be presented in court so the decision is not based on religion alone.
What balderdash. First of all, there is no ancient history in Christianity forbidding gay couples from adoption. This notion is new. Catholic clergy have taken parts of the Bible which talk of men and women as a union and added the most used phrase in Christianity, "WHAT IS MEANS IS...." In this case, "What this means is Catholic adoption agencies cannot place children with gay couples." If anyone can come up with a bigger stretch I'd like to hear it.
Second, the link author says the wisdom of what she believes (incorrectly) to be an ancient teaching should be argued. She thinks it would be possible to use studies showing children of gay parents do more poorly the those of heterosexual couples.
There is at least one book on this topic--I have it. It was written by Catholic Ryan Carlson and a couple of other lawyers. I once debated Carlson in Fargo. His whole argument is there was one study which found children of heterosexual couples did a tiny bit better than children of gay couples measuring various parameters. The study itself admitted it was not comparing apples to apples. It admitted the gay couples who had adopted were, on average, not as long married and in the same level of stable relationships as the heterosexual couples it studied. It turns out children of long term gay relationships do as well as children of long term heterosexual relationships. So, what the link wants accomplished is not available.
Religious liberty must come in at a lower level of importance than welfare of children. When couples, gay or straight, show credentials for good parenting they should be treated equally.
who is she? you attack her views without even telling us who "she" is. quite apart from your shortcomings as a writer, your article, however, raises several other issues, issues which, based on my past experience, you chose not to address head on. first, what is equality and on what do you base your constant appeals to equality. I assume that you mean equality before the law, not equality of intelligence, power, riches, outcome or whatever. but is positive law really a reliable foundation on which to build a notion of equality? after all laws can be changed tomorrow and, in the past, have served as the rationale for inequality (or, if you refer, injustice). what if, tomorrow, the government was taken over by a power (say racists) who passed laws saying that blacks are no longer equal to whites. what would you then fall back upon to challenge such laws as violations of the "equality" principle? obviously you would have to fall back on some natural law and/or theological principle saying that the new racist laws are as Augustine said "unjust laws are no laws at all". (Parenthetically, the Weimar German judiciary was stacked with legal positivists who had to change their tune when the Nazis came to power).
ReplyDeletesecond you obviously fail to see (or do not wish to see) that in the gay adoption instance that the notion of equality (or, again, if you prefer, justice) is a two edged sword. obviously for you, religious views have no claim to equality in your "freethinker" world where one man's shaky views of equality reign supreme. we know, of course, that you don't like two edged swords, just a big scimitar that can cut through all the knots of life).
third, it is my view that all the social studies research, if piled to the moon, would never definitively resolve the gay parenting issue (remember that PHD often means nothing more than piled higher and deeper). there are, of course, arguments pro and con (like she's arguments) but no "scientific proof" one way or the other. in other words, much social science research is humbug.